


tree-lined road

by Siria



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Future Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-10-01
Updated: 2009-10-01
Packaged: 2017-10-03 18:53:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siria/pseuds/Siria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The botanists give them some sort of fancy Latin name, but as far as John is concerned, they're redwoods. Though their leaves are silvery-grey, not green, and their roots spread out into the rich, dark soil of New Atlantis, the trees' soaring height reminds him vaguely of the time he spent with his mom in northern California when he was a little kid.</p>
            </blockquote>





	tree-lined road

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [](http://mcsmooch.livejournal.com) challenge, as a thank you to [Lamardeuse](http://lamardeuse.livejournal.com) for her generosity.

The botanists give them some sort of fancy Latin name, but as far as John is concerned, they're redwoods. Though their leaves are silvery-grey, not green, and their roots spread out into the rich, dark soil of New Atlantis, the trees' soaring height reminds him vaguely of the time he spent with his mom in northern California when he was a little kid. John was maybe four, five, too young to remember everything that had happened, but the snapshots he carries of them in his head are still vivid, even if blurred at the edges with age—the long, dark fall of his mother's hair; the songs she sang to him; the struggle to scale the heights of one enormous tree root; the green, living tang of the air when he breathed in.

John's forty-six years past childhood memories, but he's not too old to find an odd kind of satisfaction in afternoons spent out in these forests. They're only a few minutes walk from the new Athosian settlement, but it feels as if they're miles from anywhere. Far as any of the archaeologists can tell, no one'd ever set foot on this planet before Atlantis touched down here, and when Torren scrambles to the top of a tree root and crows his triumph to the skies, his shouts are echoed back from an undisturbed canopy of leaves.

Torren, at seven, can't remember a home other than this—for him, the world begins with the ocean and the forests, the feel of damp moss against his fingertips and the promise of clear skies overhead—and John doesn't want to. Far as he's concerned, he found his first home the day he stepped through the 'gate for the first time. Virginia and Stanford, Afghanistan and Antarctica, they were just stopping points along the way, places he got held up before he found himself here—middle-aged and scarred and happy, sitting on a tree root with his godson, his underwear patched and darned and his BDU pants not much better, a strong, soft pair of Athosian boots on his feet.

John shares a wedge of _bledhu_ cheese with Torren while they sit and watch the others work—or, well, while they sit and watch the others work and Rodney complain about how John and Torren are sitting and watching. "I'm not getting any younger here!" Rodney shouts up at them, "and all this bending over is hell on my iliac spine."

"McKay," John says in a voice of lazy outrage, "not in front of the kid."

"Yeah, Uncle Rodney, not in front of _me_," says Torren. The kid may not be old enough to pick up on any kind of innuendo yet—thank _god_, and if John has anything to do with it, he never will; it freaks John out enough already that Torren would be in second grade if they were back on Earth—but he'd long ago learned from John the swiftest ways to make Rodney splutter and fume.

"John Sheppard," Teyla says, her voice edged with that hint of steel that's only been honed by motherhood, "I believe we have previously spoken about weaponising my eldest child?"

"Yes, Teyla," John says meekly. "Sorry, Teyla."

"Apology accepted," Teyla replies, straightening up and bracing the small of her back with one hand. She's carrying an almost full basket in the other. "Though I do believe it's time the two of you took a turn at gathering. Torren?"

"Mushrooms are _stinky_," Torren says, but he clambers down without further protest and goes to help his mother. Between Teyla, Jennifer, Ronon and the twins, they've gathered six baskets of the pale yellow mushrooms so far; even little Tagahn has her own toddler-sized basket, though it contains just as much moss and leaves as it does mushrooms.

"Torren?"

Torren sighs. "Mushrooms are nutritious and good for you and I will not try to put mine on Uncle Ronon's plate at dinner when I think you're not looking."

"A wise decision," Teyla says, and John tries his best not to laugh at the look on her face. There weren't that many people who would get that when Teyla arched her eyebrows like that, she was hard-pressed not to grin, but John does—he's seen it directed at him and Rodney a time or two.

She and Torren set to work on a big clump of mushrooms growing against the side of one massive root. John could join them, but eh... It's been a long week of negotiations and carefully bland arguments with new allies, the kind of diplomacy that always gives John a headache—even more so knowing that the work he and Teyla are are doing now is going to shape the kind of Atlantis Torren and Ara, Rakai and Tagahn will grow up in. It's a whole lot easier to go over to where Rodney has found himself a seat on the moss-soft curve of a boulder and ease himself down beside him.

"Lollygagger," Rodney sniffs, though his own basket is only half-full and is lying abandoned at his feet.

"Forgot I was sleeping with a Victorian spinster," John says, resting back on his elbows. His knee's aching a little these days, so he stretches his legs out in front of him, wiggling his toes like a cat in the sun.

"Ha," Rodney says, but there's little heat behind it. He's tired too, John knows—if John hasn't been able to stagger back to their quarters much before two every night this week, neither has Rodney. Sometimes John wonders if Rodney regrets the choices they made, how there'd been no turning back once they'd sent that final message to the SGC—but then Rodney looks up at him and grins. Whatever he's had to give up, whatever doors are closed to both of them now, he smiles like he's home, and John can't help leaning in to kiss him.

From somewhere behind him, John can hear Ronon's bright roar of laughter, his daughter's giggle as he swings her up over his head. Teyla and Jennifer are talking softly to one another, their voices a low hum beneath the noise of children's laughter, and overhead birds are calling from tree to tree. Beneath his fingertips, Rodney's all stubble and smooth skin, and to kiss the curve of Rodney's smile makes John feel warm all over. Rodney's fingers twine themselves in the soft fabric of John's tunic, grazing against John's belly and making the muscles there jump.

"Not in the woods," Rodney murmurs when he pulls back. His gaze is still fixed on John's mouth, and John shivers at the implicit _later_.

John kisses him one more time for good measure, nipping at Rodney's lower lip and grinning at the way that makes Rodney flush. "Me Tarzan," he says, "you Jane."

"Oh for the love of..." Rodney begins, but his grumbling his cut short by Torren's cry of, "Ewww, _gross_, makings out!"

"We need to get Amelia to stop teaching him Earth slang," Rodney says.

"Sure," John says, "I'll get right on that," and stuffs a handful of moss down the back of Rodney's t-shirt, laughing when Rodney yelps and flails. It's good to be home.


End file.
